


Fandomeron

by Anonymous



Category: IRL - Fandom, Internet Culture - Fandom, Multi-Fandom
Genre: Fandom Allusions & Cliches & References, Identity, Multi, Other, Writing Exercise, role
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-10
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:08:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 7,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27496954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Short stories, sketches and drabbles taking place in real life and fandom.
Collections: Anonymous





	1. THE COMEDY OF NAMES

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone who names himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the episodes in this anthology are mostly made up, even the real sounding ones

In which Amadeus, Transgender Youth Minister and Car Mechanic I Met Once In A Bank Lobby At Pride, changes his name twice a week on a quest for belonging and conversation, the Characters of his Support Groups and Youtube Fans, and his accidental Captivity in Utopia after the Emory Bus Breakdown.  
Amadeus, Amadeus, invoked himself, not the man and men of long ago, the one who staffs Unconditional, whose chocolate-covered pretzels sweeten every mouth, the builder of cars and castles, he whose invisibility is indivisible, Amadeus of the five-minute LocalPaper spotlight from eighth grade, whose 4,000 followers have never seen his legs. This is the tale of his happy capriciousness.  
Avrom he was that week; Nicodemus the one before and Solomon the next, but today he is Amadeus and tomorrow he may CTRL+F each Amadeus instance and replace it with another. May his hands see much grease!


	2. THE ROMANTIC NOTION OF NEVER SHUTTING UP

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Sonic the Hedgehog comics fanartist.

That comic chewed at our ears every second and centimeter we put between it, dragging our soggy jeans and sneakers 'round the corner. We talked, all hot air, the sound of speech bubbles popping in and out of realness on account of our heads only having space for a solo conversation. I'd opened a brand-new bottle last Monday – Deleter, #4, – now, two days from deadline, it was half empty. Some idiot (me) had written a four-page flashback without accounting for ink. Nothing else in my toolbox would dry as fast or as black and the art emporium downtown only carried Higgins, which was gonna look blue-grey next to the rest. Easy to fix in Photoshop, for print. Wouldn't save me from Bill's critique.


	3. YAOI NIGHT AT THE GAYLORD

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A sexy photoshoot in a con hotel room.

Twenty-one bodies in the Gaylord's two-queen suite sharing thirty-six purple plastic cups. There's a guest leaning on the entertainment center, lanyard tangled in his reputation, as he coaxes one birdlike face-painted man and one grinning little sister into midnight vandalist fantasies. One guy is waiting for the bathroom, holding the roll of toilet paper between thermoplastic bear claws. It's occupied; through the door, the sound of splashing and a camera shutter. There's not enough working lightbulbs in the whole room to see every face at once.  
When the draining of the tub starts to creak through the closet walls where we sit, swapping pigeon memories, Persephone stands, bright red from her Arda wig to the hem of her hand-made gown. She is a princess.  
The bathroom door opens. Out walk two young men, one soaked through her dress pants and leaving squishy sock-prints on the carpet. The other holds their dripping tie. Adri exits behind them, DSLR in hand. The TP guy waiting, Denis, pushes past in his haste for long-awaited relief, but as the door swings back around, he calls to them, "Good shoot?"  
The beam of Cyn's teeth is answer enough.


	4. STUFFED IN A SUITCASE & SUNK LIKE A STONE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A visit to the ocean between thoughts.

When you pull up to Fierce Island, there's an acrylic sign the height of a wooden beehive before you even see around the bend. One million lonely slivers of standing green wait along the margin where ground turns to infinite chalky stone. Pebbles spent like airsoft rounds float away, at a touch, gliding along their carpet of silt. The unbothered growl of waves curling rises up around the rocks and garbage competing for attention at the water's edge, and underneath, an intermittent yelp as their wish is granted over and over.  
Over, the pavilion stretches, the grey and white calico waffle-cone of roof tiles, where kind and ugly birds come and go. They are shaped like crabs holding onto moon snails, clutched so tightly that in profile, only their letter-opener legs stick out.  
You can turn to the west, past the oily mirrors of stillspots and the steely gleaming arch of billowed smells, and your privilege is to see almost nothing. A twenty percent opacity world, just like the surface, nearly visible, intangible, a checkerboard of unremembered quartz.   
I'm told this is where they left her.


	5. THE EXERCISE OF EMPTYING OUT A CHARACTER'S POCKETS

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a way to get to know people. Sometimes they don't make a lot of sense.

First he tickled out all four slots in his borrowed slacks, producing one brown button with four holes, still interred in its chatty plastic wrapper.  
Meanwhile, her expedition trampled though the hanging gardens of her big brown Jeep-brand cargo pants, excavating anthropological artifacts like an imperial museum donor. First the fat body of her expired inhaler landed beside his untouched button, followed by a set of keys, attached to a UT Austin lanyard and a rubber Minnie Mouse strap, worn almost entirely red. Minnie's one painted eye watched as she was joined by a thumbprint-sized lint bunny, two Walgreens receipts, a black stirring stick from Uncle Dan's Donuts, and her purple-and-black LSP wallet. The wallet, lacking a lining, coughed out a blood donor card - AB - and a coupon for a free taco at Torchy's while she unloaded finally those glorious panniers at her sides, sagging with multicolored cap erasers, pens and pencils, green and yellow highlighters, an 8 gig thumb drive, an empty BC blister and two stubby uncapped eyebrow pencils, which smeared twin freckles into her thumb. The last item came from her rear pocket, almost forgotten; headphones with Tiny Kitty's teethmarks scraped into the rubber that curled like dead tree roots on the checkered-blue comforter.


	6. DIGIBULLY BLUES

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The internet catches up to them offline.

Found out today I doxxed a deaf honor student.  
We got a new girl even though it's halfway through the semester. So our class has 76 people now. Alex Lu and Bianca were all mad about it because they already did the whole yearbook and because our 2015 graduation shirts don't so much make sense with the 15 looking like a 75 anymore. It was funny, but that's what they get for not planning ahead. Even though the rest of us have known each other almost forever. I didn't buy the shirt anyway and I am just counting down the days until May when I never have to see them again, so I don't care if they make up 74 or 75 or 750 without me there. People in the room think so small that this is real drama; a transfer and an inconvenienced yearbook committee.  
I didn't make the connection right away between the transfer student teeth-chattering her biography at the front of social studies and the One Direction fangirl I'd run off the Internet in 8th grade. Why would I? That was in the past. And I'd never have been looking for cute, friendly, honest Erika Atlas, five foot four, fidgety with a rainbow of rubber bands snug about her wrist.  
The girl I doxxed was named Alanna. She had an icon of Darren Criss from Glee from a million years ago and 30,000 groupies clamoring for attention. She was cool and confident; her message box the fandom advice column. She could photomanip your fave back, forward, and sideways, and when the earthquake hit she raised 900 dollars selling one-shots and smutbashes. She was perfect.  
I couldn't stand it.


	7. STRANGER BENCH

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A bench is a good place to meet strangers.

I see people walking up and down in pairs & families (So I guess all families, then?)  
Hear the water splashing at the side of My Little Lady III. There's a cool breeze – it's nice. I smell cool air. If my smell were better I bet it would be salty too. A seagull klaxon sound and little robot bird chirps. The jingle of dogs trotting. People's voices. It's neat and clean – more specifically, sanitized.  
I don't like it here.  
I went there because I had the day off and my professor of writing was throwing a party that night at his home and there was a writing conference in this town. The conference was not very good. I should say it's not what I expected. Lots of marketing, little craft or conversation. Which makes sense, because it was free. But I'd been to better free writing conferences on Livejournal. I was drawing the skyline. I can't remember the last time I went somewhere and just sat and drew. And I certainly don't hang out in shiny seasides. I felt like I was on a TV set. There was a bridge that crossed the river with a gentle curve that swelled like the horizon line, and it looked cool. The bench I chose to sat on was sponsored by a guy with my same first name, so I felt a little obligated and attached. I don't think he picked his out, too, but it's a pretty cool name, and you never know.  
A couple walking by stopped and asked me to take their picture. They were friendly. I gendered them, unbeknownst to the strangers. The guy was covered in tattoos and had that real and honest, kind of restful look to him. The woman reminded me of our cash office manager. She was kind.  
"What're you doing? Just drawing?" she said. I said yeah. They asked if I was in school. I told them I went to Statey U. I always call it that to folks old enough to know it by that name first. It's faster and I like the sound more.  
Even though we were couple hours' drive away from Statey, it turns out we were practically neighbors. The woman said her daughter is 23, just a little younger than I, and she's from Exit. I told her my best friend was from Exit. She told me her name and didn't recognize Deb's but – small world. I took their picture. I got a few shots so they could pick the best one. Then we exchanged amicable goodbyes.  
The guy said "Stay out of trouble," and I heard her say under hear breath, "I don't think he has to worry about that."  
I think cause I was pretty polite. I have diction and all that. But I do get in trouble.  
"Take care, kid," she said. 


	8. QUEER 101: IT GETS BETTER

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Visiting churches and schools and so on.

OWL kids remain, by far, the easiest to talk to. Part of this is the anti-traumatic efforts of every concrete UU basement I've been in, where they've been told the truth as best their parents know in plural faith for as long as most of them can remember. Even with a member of the clergy whose last software update happened before 9/11 and the anxieties of growing longer and getting in one another's business. They ask questions because in this place their honest curiosity has gone unpunished. Not so when I visit public and private school classrooms. There, we usually prompt the questions ourselves.  
The other component is vocabulary. When teens have been permitted the candor of a full curricuulm, they can take the conversation to places even beyond that of well-meaning chaperones. When they have agreed upon the value and validity of common personality, they adapt quickly to new types of personhood. They connect and relate to friends around the world. They do not know how unprecedented this is in the history of humankind - not the connection, but its speed and breadth. The OWL kids annotate their textbooks over Snapchat.  
The voc-tech kids are next. This is because of their unparalleled cooperation and capacity for self-expression. People who identify with their making of things are more agile in making themselves; they exercise the human birthright of creation. Among one another and even with the restrictions of role, these round-peg union teens tend towards radical hopes and dreams, new pictures of profession, competence and gender. By and large, the boy stylists and girl welders boast a cohort that will stick up for them in the face of disparaging remarks, though some of them are moving on from gender already, and much like the military, everybody knows who's gay, but doesn't tell teacher. (This is a story of a particular school; it's not everyone.) The sorrow of those few is that as a result, this dissent often constrains itself to the inner voice. The pressure of roles - ghosts of future trades and cartoon tradesmen - that the students have long reconceptualized and outgrown wraps around their every day. Authorities and their victimized young accomplices rule in full-force, so tangled in the way-it-is-what-it-is that they've forgotten tech school is for makers.  
University typically turns dreadful. Tufts students are afraid of their own empty holes to the point of denying their existence and Harvard teaches more journals than history. Yale students have no concept of a perspective outside their own. Their questions are both detailed and creative but lacking in substance like that of the OWL eighth grader who engages with hir fellow human beings as people on unconditional grounds. The deeper someone goes in the system, the worse it gets. Some students have the words, but not the meaning. Others have the meaning, today's, but lack the history. We're all trying to talk to each other. Going different directions. On paper and in the minds of the people who pay me to talk, my job is to brand the organization as diverse and conscious and therefore palatable, regardless of their many crimes. In the minds of students who relate to me as OTHER, my job is ostensibly to coax an understanding of my humanity from their clamshell heads. Anybody who does that work seriously knows, you don't do it for any of those people, because they're missing the point. I'm there to say: I EXIST. YOU EXIST. WE ALWAYS HAVE. YOU HAVE EVERY RIGHT TO. University students contort themselves with the most poetic expressions of WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, and HOW, HOW, HOW, HOW, HOW: drowning in triple-tiered fountains of words, we hear only the aching absence of WHY.


	9. YET ANOTHER!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A long con.

The walk from the hotel to the ACEC was a mile of sun, concrete and automatic doors. In the distance were a pair of attendees. One was using a power chair and the sun hung centimeters above their head. The walkway was concrete. Below it were staircases and a gardener riding their mower through the property lawn. There were no signs. A stream of other people came out from the corner up ahead and their sound occupied the barrel beneath the awning. There were no ants on the ground.  
In twenty minutes there would be a concert. It was all over the app. Thuy wore sunglasses. Matthias had a hat. His left leg was shorter than his right. Her thumb was moving back and forth.  
"I met them last year, in Atlanta, you know."  
"Atlanta is a long way from here," she said, not looking up from her phone. There was a picture of Carly Rae Jepsen with the legs of an iguana on the screen. IGUAL ME MAYBE.  
"I know it is," he said.  
"I'm from Savannah."  
"I know you are."  
"Are those new?"  
"They were up here last year. I think."  
"I think the midnight book party sounds nice," Thuy said. Now her phone was open to Whatsapp. She sent an ice-cream cone sticker.  
"Jamie's party starts at eleven, though."  
"Jamie left her ties on our bed again today."  
"You're not seriously skipping her party for that?"  
"Why not? She's a librarian. She understands."


	10. FOOT IN MOUTH DISEASE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cringe compilation of ignorance.

Once at an anime convention, at a midnight meetup, I accidentally made a friend through the power of Freudian slip, and was gifted unearned wisdom.

At the time, we had never met; LC was a friend of a mutual; the mutual in question was in full costume, dressed as a skeleton in a suit, and in between passing strangers asking her to stand for a photo, she tried to introduce us. We were sipping 7-11 Slurpees mixed with cherry vodka and talking about some comic or another, and as the conversation devolved into literary analysis she started to wax eloquent about the meaning of life.

I was impressed (crushing hard, but with ego), and a little tongue-tied by the vodka. "Are you usually an intellectual drunk?" was what I meant to say,

but it came out as _**"Are you a drunk lesbian?"**_

Skeleton friend, Roxy, started laughing so hard she almost choked on her drink, and I started to stammer out apologies and addenda, citing my own inebriation, the fact that she had just been talking about gay pornography ten minutes ago, the consonants shared by "intellect" and "lesbianism", full-out embarassment; I forgot to _chill! It's not about you!_ Thirty minutes into our meeting, and I had already jeopardized my chances of ever speaking to this human ever again, let alone exchanging numbers. My face was already warm from the slurpee but the heat under my collar crept up exponentially. 

LC didn't react immediately. I was stumbling over words and telling Roxy to shut up as she kept laugh-coughing. Just as I'd calmed down and clammed up, LC leveled her gaze at me, pointed at me with the hand holding her drink, and - cross my heart - slurred out, "I am a lesbian _all_ of the time."

I said, "Oh, um."

Roxy said, "She is so gay."

I tried to joke, "I... guess that makes sense. Your hair is pretty short." What? What the fuck? Well, I was a baby trans at the time living in Woman World but somewhere between either binary. What did I know about acknowledging yours, mine, our queerness aloud. I was trying to connect and pushing backwards in my haste.

She had an inch or two on mine, well within acceptable gender length, but after she said that I could kind of see it. You know, based on limited human interaction beyond stereotypes.

"Oh my god," drunk LC replied. "That's not why I have no hair. I have no hair because of cancer."

"Cancer?" WHAT THE FUCK? HOLY SHIT! HOW MUCH FURTHER WILL I SHOVE FOOT UP MINE OWN ASS?

It was fine though. She was chill. She got what I meant. In hindsight, she was reading me better than myself.

"Hell yeah," she said. "Just finished chemo in April!" It was July.

"Damn, congratulations," I said. I wasn't exactly sure how to respond, and still buzzed. "I'm sorry you had to deal with cancer. I guess your hair's pretty long, then."

"It used to be, like, this long, dude," she said, shoving a hand lengthwise just under her boob. I tried not to stare. "Cancer sucks. Don't ever do cancer."

"She loves to talk about it," Roxy told me, and took away my drink.


	11. MORNING BLUE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not always easy to move forward.

“Sun’s on the other side, bud.”

Kwamen’s footsteps found him on a curb in the shadow of the complex the next morning, cradling a cup of tea gone cold.

“Good morning,” said A. He knew very well where to find the sun. Its warmth infected the air itself: he couldn’t not feel it, even when he sought the coldest stone in the darkest corner to lean against in peace.

“Hey.” Kwamen dropped into the space at his side. A moved automatically to make room, and Kwamen followed. An unpleasantly bony arm settled over his shoulders like a shrug. It tightened. “Wanna talk about it?”

“No.”

Kwamen rewarded him with a low laugh for the honesty, rubbing at his pinioned arm. A tucked his elbows in to protect the tea from spilling over. “Okay. Okay.”

Eventually, the sun above discovered his hiding place. Its tactless fingers crept up their ankles like a rising tide. When the silhouettes of its presence began to encroach on his vision, A turned his forehead into his friend’s shoulder. Kwamen tightened his grip. True to his word, he said nothing more.


	12. FREEWRITE FROM AN ABYSMAL SEMESTER, 2012

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Free writing is an exercise in which you make yourself write and not stop writing, even if what you're writing is a weird stream of consciousness that goes nowhere. It's a way to get the words going. Sometimes it just turns into a rant about whatever's on your mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warning: child abuse, family stuff.

It's time to write. I am gonna freewrite to get in the mood right now, and when I'm there, I'll find something real to write about. There's nothing that I can't miss for a few hours. In fact, my justification for leaving it on doesn't make sense, since it's never been necessary. Even in times of emergency, I would be back on in less than a day. Maybe a healthy distance will make normal everyday electronics stuff less frightening too. If I do well in school, I'll be able to escape my house and find a job. It doesn't matter if mom's proud of me or if she hates me or scorns me or is embarassed by me or thinks I'm lame and stupid and mean and fat, those are all things she projected on me since I was a little kid and had no say in the matter, much less a developed enough self to make those kinds of cruel judgments. But they've grown and they're such an ingrained part of how she sees me, even though she made that version of me herself, and she's never believed or really liked me, she thinks very little of me as a person, so protesting just makes her angrier. I have nothing to gain by defending myself and everything to lose, whereas if I just keep quiet and try my best and keep working hard I will get out someday. I have to believe that. And I have to always remind myself of the way everyone else sees me; all the horrible, mean, nasty, small things she has drilled into my head from childhood to make me believe, all the lies she accused me of when I wasn't lying and all the times she bullied me into lying because she didn't agree with the truth, all the double expectations and non communication and anger until I didn't know what was real or what she wanted, those are symptomatic of her projection and even though i hate myself and want to die at home it's not a world that will follow me in the rest of my life as long as I can actually get away and recover. It hasn't changed since I was in high school and if anything it's gotten worse, but her judgment of quality of life is based on her mood, so she thinks things are better even though she acts exactly the same as she always did. Thus the anger at even the quietest, meekest, most apologetic eggshell comment that contradicts her ideal world. Thus the anger anger anger. I am sick from it. I can't cope. And what makes her the angriest is disobedience. Thinking different she can't handle much either, even the tamest most gentle expression of an opinion that isn't hers. So of course we've managed to coexist because I have shut up and been as obedient as possible and worked myself half to death and hidden away from interaction and even that isn't enough, as every time we interact she finds something to mock, even if it's just the way I eat or dress or fucking breathe. But I have to be like her sole personal outlet for all things and perfectly patient and perfect and handling stress perfectly at all times or else I'm crazy and stupid. She says these guilty soundbites of "oh I shouldn't be talking to you about this" but that doesn't seem to change anything about her actual actions. Guess what? Yeah, it is inappropriate. There's a psychology term for this, I found out on the Internet recently, they call it emotional incest, and I don't know how right that is but I think they call it that for a reason. And she can make all the excuses she wants, and if they work on herself more power to her, but I know I've seriously self reflected and made a hard try at being more PLEASANT to live with. That has not been a two way street, because she'll try up to a point and cite that as her defense, but if she skirts too close to her serious issues she's just too afraid to deal with them and has to project it away on other people. Guess what! If you can own up to your mistakes and don't turn every conversation into a fight, people are generally equally down to get along! It's a little scary to be real with yourself and others, but it's not that hard to have open conversations!   
How old was I when it started? How old was I when I started getting torn down for being embarassing for being myself? Was it when I was six and she made too fat for the swings jokes? Was it when I was eleven and she held me down on the ground because I was too stupid to clean the floor the right way? Like a dog being pushed to their piss? How many times did that happen? Why did I think it was normal? How small was I really when all of it started? Was it when I was twelve and she struck me for a bad report card? Was it when I was fifteen and she hated me for being trans? Was it when I was seventeen and she said I fucked up [by going through a suicidal depression]? Did I ever have worth? What kind of conditional love is that? Where was any of the love or validation or any other bare minimum emotional support in all that? Were they too busy dealing with their shit to be invested in our selves? It's like every step I took to build confidence and self esteem was absolutely ruined when I left Big Brand at her suggestion (Why did I listen?) because I had nowhere to escape. It's possible to heal and not hate yourself I know that. I have so many beautiful friendships of mutual love and respect. Everyone else in my life, some bosses, some professors, my coworkers and classmates, their description of my character is the exact opposite of the horrible person she thinks I am, so I am not horrible, I have done better than I think in treating people kindly, I have merit and I have to remember it's what I do, that makes a difference, and that I have a right just to exist. But I hate that she wants to celebrate those successes when the rest of the time she just discourages me from everything I try and if I share anything I'm excited about she doesn't care and openly mocks me. When I'm depressed or struggling or dumb at school it's because I'm not doing something right, why don't you just try harder. No support there, just attacks so why even bother. Then after I pull myself through all that despite the negativity, you have the gall to be all happy for me? I didn't succeed because of your love, I succeeded in spite of your hate. I can do it. I gotta get out. I hate reliving my worst childhood memories as an adult. It's so hard when you are reminded of it every day. This took a dark turn, but I guess that can happen with freewrites. Probably helps to get it all out. These days I feel so alone with this in my head.


	13. WINDBAG WEIGHS IN ON THE DIGITAL REVOLUTION

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> DON'T MIX FANDOM AND FEELINGS AND POLITICS!

People born after 2000: You are literally an unprecedented generation. Think outside the boxes we designed last millennium.

Speaking of 2000, that's the year Digimon: The Movie came out. I loved that movie. I saw the dub as a child, I'm from the US. For those who don't know, the version we got in the US was actually a few completely separate OVAs in Japan that got stitched together for a feature release here. Mamoru Hosoda directed one of the films, Our War Game!, which is excellent even if you don't already love Digimon. In the climactic final showdown, the antagonist Digimon hacks into military computers to fire missiles. The heroes battle, vanquish their foe, and prevent the weapons from detonating. The way they succeeded stuck with me, because it's a story that could only have been told in our time. (They knew how to make the internet sound cool)

We're nearing the climax. The hero Digimon have such a poor Internet connection (their dialup is being jammed by an influx of supportive emails, real,) that their ability to fight is actually lagging, and the villain is gaining ground. Even though they are digital creatures, the digital nature of the world they live in has become an obstacle. (Kids all around the world are watching a livestream of this Digimon fight, btw. So basically exactly how it would go down - does go down - IRL.) The audience sends more supportive mesages. Our human protagonists, partners of the Digimon, use the power of love to re-ignite their fighting spirit. The heroes fuse and launch a new attack, gaining ground. But the villain is still too fast for them! Then they get a brilliant idea. Why not forward the spam mail and bust up HIS internet connection? 

"Keep sending those emails!" Izzy yells. We see everyone around the world glued to their computer screen, some alone, some in groups. The emails fill the space. The IRL viewer is implicitly included by association. The villain is overwhelmed. 

TIME'S UP.

That's special. It's important. We all won together. We are the spam mail that empowers our heroes! And we came from all over the world. Our heroes in the story were these kids who had the power to make a difference and took it as evidence of their responsibility to do so. To protect their friends. All that stuff that gets us online and talking about anime together and having fun. Relatable dot jpeg.

In 2021, the World Wide Web turns 30. There are more adults now than ever, period, who grew up with childhood friends halfway across the world. One university can't hoard the only printing press on a continent and control the flow of information anymore. (True story, in the US, or maybe the english colony; lasted like a century) One media conglomerate can't tell the only story (boy do those motherfuckers try.) They can't even hoard education! Though they try - schools are businesses - student loans are a goldmine. Unpaid internships are good for it too. But the expensive shit pales next to Undertale because Undertale has heart. Technologically speaking, there are more adults who know how to talk to one another - who can see - share - tell history - than ever before.

Although the present time is one of tragedy and suffering for most (9 in 10, if not more), by the hand of white supremacist capitalist patriarchy, there has also never been a period in history in which so MANY individuals at once have chosen to align themselves with the personhood of others, and live out their weirdness and loving, in so many places across the world, with such access to fast - occasionally instant - communication with one another and such a wealth of information! Humans are excellent learners - linguists and innovators - and now we can teach each other somanythings somanyways. We're all waking up and we love each other. Even if we piss each other off. But if nobody's capable of overpowering anybody, it becomes a problem not of survival, but conversation! democracy has been a smash hit with every iteration in theory. we're on version, idk, 300 now? a lot of revolutions get extinguished. But that stupid motherfucker (god) always forgets to close the window along with the door. Freedom is rapidly going mainstream, because it's the only thing that makes sense. So why aren't people with the most experience in communicating across this world wide web more coordinated?

Our primary obstacle is and has always been the result of deliberate machinations of oppression. The structure of power itself. The distraction of playing set roles. As long as we are caught in an economic system predicated on one life being enriched at the expense of another (quite literally! by definition!) equality will never be anyone's. They're halfway to killing the Earth entirely, lost in a television fantasy, and there has got to be another way. Most of us are not as stupid or malicious as abusers in power (a structurally abusive system tending to self-select for those who take to dealing out abuse). By attending to the immediate needs of our neighbors and raising consciousness - educating one another of this and directly addressing each infringement on personal dignity that structures our present lives - we will heal the world and design a society of our own. That's one vision. We need new versions of what it is we do now, and to do away with the abuse of power and wasting of time. There are people doing what they can to help one another in every town. You know what they say about that $20 and Venmo. The alternatives cannot be sustained without self-destruction. And the present state of humanity is pretty lousy for a lot of us anyway, no offense to the rich and famous.

Nothing new. People have been able to see through it for as long as we’ve been around, and try to put things in context for themselves. We're always, always trying to continue the history. You can kill a digital revolutionary, but not the digital revolution. Etc. We have simply been traumatized into compliance. This is simply the era in which we have the most access to knowledge and the most resources to learn from and to help one another. It's not as easy as sending emails and wishes like in Digimon, but it's the only choice if I really believe that everyone on earth deserves the chance to dick around reading and writing fanfiction with not a care in the world like I do.

Wealth has largely determined who is heard. This includes access to education.


	14. IT WAS HOPE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Swimming near human beings.

It was then that he realized, treading water at the cusp of a rotating monastery 3,000 stories from home, the meaning of the thing. For up to this point his preoccupation had been with the men and the obvious fact that they were gay, and the embracing security he felt that they had not been cast aside or remarked upon–but watching the broad blue expanse before him now, he realized, with the giddiness of lonely childhood–that even here, even now, even he–could call the man a friend–and as the water coiled about his elbows, the sodden heads of visitors peering at them from the wall–  
–he knew 


	15. FILK IS COOL

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *chanting* RP! RP!

Soft hands guiding hers. The hands of a young person – but then, so were hers, in those days. Not to teach her to play – she knew better than he. His instrument was not the guitar but the bone flute. _Just so_ , he’d say, plucking the string. _If you know when you and your friend here are happy, you can talk to everything around you, too._ The air shone golden with dimming sun, and that day had ended like many others; rushing home through damp grass, their smooth stone in the clearing by the river left untouched until the next day, the next lesson. Angela realized suddenly that she’d never thought to ask where Quinn slept all that time, before they’d set off together. The memory of his smiles, of playing music together beside the water and sharing their special, forbidden secret – she remembered, now, how it was to feel like a singer for the first time. And so she spoke to the fire.


	16. TRANSLATING

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More gender ahead, you've been warned

Skin is sandpaper. Mouths are rivers, shifting as soft and pregnant banks transform to steep cliff drops off of childhood. Worlds churn in a spiral like sinking through the drain. Nothing is heard but the cries of a chewed-off fingernail. Six dollars a bottle, and soon they’ll disintegrate. Staying is for the quiet ones only; they are the hawk.

Lip peels back as a sticker’s backing should; this time, the things they say are needles. Thoughts bleed and never seal.

Tearing hate away quicker makes the doctor see happy endings, filing in and out with tears in their eyes and soft, sloping brands on their chests. Officer Physician couldn’t tell the difference between the sunrise tucked away in your blouse and the many long days which came before. What a beautiful transformation is remaining oneself.

Steam inhaled is your child. Like infant soldiers, it was never over two hours unless forever. Truth hides inside you and you are a cage. The only cutting left is your hair, the end of a day, navigation by star. How many times did the red recording light speak to you?

This room is like a world made of grizzly bears, nightmares and love. A lion, as a boy, shatters it. A boy as a boy who is dead tapes it. A boy who is nothing leaves it and it lets out a sigh. The room, ever the mother, says it’s safe. The nest can never be left without columns of knowledge. Without a fall, understanding won’t speak.

Pink and blue and red all over, trying on clothes when sounds lie and shaving away coarse sinful hair.

I feel the earth move.


	17. the cast of a cartoon i made up in my head when i was 11 and steven universe and she ra didn't exist

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That's why it's so cringe, and so reflective of 90s ensemble casts of characters. It's about a team of gifted (superpowered) students at an all girls school. What's the story? who knows!

Pris: Priscilla Waters (hates the name), power to speak to animals, sensible but compassionate and sweet, good student and tends to hesitate, her family is friendly smart mom jolly dad and a younger brother who annoys her to death.

Sierra: Sierra Boston, telekinesis type power to move things, calculating also a joker, makes wisecracks and acts like she doesn’t take things seriously but in action she’s intensely concentrated. She has a single (divorce) mom who isn’t really around and doesn’t care, and a younger sister who lives with her dad that she rarely sees. The name is her dad’s.

Ruby: Ruby Emerson, power to read minds, brash and reckless, rushes into things without thinking and gets ticked off when people try to talk sense into her. Her family’s filthy rich but she doesn’t like to flaunt or talk about it much. Only child, her parents love her but she’s irritated by her mother’s mother bird presence and tries to shake her off.

Robin: Robin Lee, power to manipulate water, quiet sensible type who doesn’t talk much and is pretty deadpan/deadbeat quiet, but has good judgment often. Doesn’t get upset or fired up over most anything. Got into the school on smarts, her family’s always pushing her to do well in school. She reads a lot, so sometimes she’ll pop in with a random fact or two. Two brothers, one older and one younger, a grandmother who lives in the house half of the year, nice dad mean mom.

Dani: Danielle, power to slow time, intense type who wants to grind the enemy’s face into the dirt, etc. She’s a tomboy and not brash, just ferocious… intense. (Rachel from Animorphs inspo) She voices her opinion, and it’s usually to start smashing things. She doesn’t blow up but she’s good at revenge and such, has a cool football dad, only child and that’s probably why she turned out toughy tomboyish and cool. Hoodie girl who isn’t afraid to get dirty. Has more guy friends than girl friends, through sports. Was grumpy about going to an all-girls school

Kristin: Kristin Marshall, sometimes people call her Kris, power to heal. Optimistic, upbeat, friendly member of the group, tends to sugarcoat things and give the hope speech, and loves her power for what it lets her do. Has a younger brother, younger sister and older sister and is used to helping out around the house but her sis is the one who runs stuff. She has helpful handiwork tips that assist the group in a pinch.

Janet: Janet Welch. Nasty teacher’s-pet type who’s telling on them when they’re in odd places or sneaking out, and not nice to them in class, etc. She’s the snobby one. However, she stumbles into the other world with them once, they end up saving her from evil, and tell her not to tell, she’s still pretty nasty but keeps her word and gradually it’s like a friendly rivalry, she is eventually sort of a friend.

Mr. Finn: Robert Finn, mean math teacher who is suspicious of them, and frequently tries to catch them in the act and figure out their secret. He grades hard on them, easy on Janet, and she’s like his teacher’s pet.

The Night Prince: Derek Ryans IRW, The villain’s son, and a villain, fights them and nearly wins quite a few times in armor and stuff, has a big black wolf as a partner, but in the “real world” he’s actually a cute guy on the sister (brother?) school, one for boy’s football team who plays against Dani’s team and Ruby develops a crush and eventually dates him, then finds out who he is.


	18. FELL OVER IN FRUSTRATION

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inside this kid's head

“What the hell are you doing!”

Jay looked down. Anna was standing at the bottom of the climbing tower, arms crossed, staring up at him with a reproachful glare. He felt a little wave of resentment flow through him; would she _ever_ leave him alone? His mouth tightened and he clung stubbornly to the grips, shouting back at her: “What do you think I’m doing? Climbing the stupid rock tower!”

Anna disentangled her arms (Jay was mildly impressed; from all the time they spent crossed, he’d half-expected them to be joined at the elbow) and pointed an accusing finger across the twenty feet that separated them. “You know the gym teachers told us not to, and you know it’s too dangerous to climb alone. Stop listening to Emerson’s stupid dares, he can’t get up it either.” Jay could barely make out her face, but he was sure it was covered in the same cross expression he’d seen countless times past. He resisted the urge to let go just to see the expression on her face, and instead turned back to his climbing.

“It’s not because he dared me,” he lied to himself, grumbling under his breath. He was hardly paying attention to the climbing rocks now; he was so fed up with that kid being so full of herself and thinking she knew what was best and annoying him at every turn. Why couldn’t she just go have kids of her own instead of bothering Jay? Just because he was her neighbor didn’t mean he ever wanted her to pester-

Jay’s eyes widened.

_Crap…_

The world seemed to move in slow motion. _Oh my god oh my god I didn’t check for a foothold and I’m falling crap crap crap_ Jay’s chest was filled with a terrifying feeling of an elevator without cables – _elevator without a elevator_ , the sane part of his mind was saying as he thought it, a not an, and he had the most sickening feeling of weightlessness _what a joke, if I was weightless this wouldn’t be happening_ and then he hit his head.


	19. LEO THE MECHANIC

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The cis guys ribbed him at work, and it was mad transphobic, but kind of validating at the same time because it indicated he'd been accepted into the macho bullshit? We live in a society.

Suck my dick, man

Lionel you’re fucking twenty what, twenty six and you look like you’re fucking thirteen, when are your balls gonna drop man

Naw man he don’t have any


	20. PRACTICE MAKES KNOWLEDGE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Before I knew it I'd logged 200 hours.

i'm getting better at

mario kart


End file.
